Principles of Literary Criticism

Richards's attempt to put criticism on an objective footing using psychology as a base largely fails. The psychology is too tentative and too vaguely sketched to support the heavy burden it is intended to bear. On the other hand, many things which are baldly stated as self-evident no longer seem so from a perspective 90 years after they were proposed. Much of the book is difficult, partly because Richards is so delicately careful in almost any statement that the argument gets lost in what amounts to circumlocution. Paradoxically, his rhetorical strategy of avoiding jargon and using instead simple direct ordinary language has the effect of making the argument prolix and more convoluted than it would have been if he would have resorted to show more the professional vocabulary created to discuss these matters. The book is most interesting when he is doing practical criticism, where his discrimination, wit, and insight produce interesting results. show less